Stuart W. Bowen, Jr. served as Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction between October 2004-13, and before that Inspector General for the Coalition Provisional Authority from January-October 2004. During his tenure, he oversaw more than $60 billion in U.S. funds, reporting to the Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, and eight congressional committees. Bowen made 34 trips to Iraq, managed the production of 390 audits and inspections, issued nine comprehensive lessons learned reports, and provided 37 quarterly reports on Iraq reconstruction to the Congress. His oversight work produced financial benefits to the U.S. Government in excess of $1.8 billion, yielded 84 convictions for fraud and other crimes, and resulted in his being awarded the Gaston L. Gianni, Jr. Better Government Award (2006) and David M. Walker Excellence in Federal Government Performance and Accountability Award (2010). Bowen’s public service career also includes service to President George W. Bush as Deputy Assistant to the President/Deputy Staff Secretary (2001-03) and Special Assistant to the President/Associate Counsel (2001); and then-Governor Bush as Deputy General Counsel/Assistant General Counsel (1995-2000). He is a military veteran, having served four years on active duty as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Air Force, earning the rank of Captain and the Air Force Commendation Medal. Bowen holds a J.D. from St. Mary’s Law School and a B.A. from the University of the South. He will join us to discuss his work and the need for a U.S. Office for Contingency Operations, an independent entity that would coordinate personnel, activities and budget for U.S. civilian operations in war zones.

Dr. Amro Taleb is a Syrian and Canadian citizen who has worked as an environmental management consultant for British Petroleum, Total, the Ministry of Environment of Syria, Lafarge, and various other large companies in the Middle East, North Africa, and North America. He has executed assignments in renewable energy, oil & gas, water management, mining, clean development mechanism (CDM), International Organization for Standardization (ISO) compliance, and economic feasibility assessments. Since February 2009, Taleb has also been teaching in the Business Faculty of Arab International University (AIU) and the Petroleum Engineering Faculty at the Syrian International University for Science and Technology. He holds a masters degree in engineering from the University of Toronto and a doctorate from the Swiss Management Center. Taleb will join us to discuss his work for the past three years in the fields of higher education, infrastructure maintenance and reconstruction, negotiations, and humanitarian aid inside Syria and within neighboring provinces in Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey.

Rangina Hamidi escaped her native Afghanistan in 1981, at the age of three, during the Soviet occupation. She moved first to Pakistan and then, in 1988, to the United States. Settling with her family in Virginia, Hamidi earned a bachelor’s degree in religious and gender studies from the University of Virginia and worked for the Institute for International Public Policy, an affiliate of the United Negro College Fund. She returned to Afghanistan to work in 2003. With a personal commitment to help lead change in her home country, she assumed the leadership of the Women’s Income Generation (WIG) Project for Afghans for Civil Society (ACS), a development organization dedicated to the social development of Southern Afghanistan. Within four years, the number of women artisans associated with the project expanded from 25 to more than 400, handcrafting items such as pillows, tablecloths, clothing, and accessories embellished with a uniquely Afghan style of embroidery. In 2008, Hamidi established Kandahar Treasure as the first women’s private enterprise in the region. Since 2012, she has been splitting her time living and working in Kandahar and Virginia. Hamidi has been internationally recognized for her work with women, selected as one of 18 finalists for the CNN 2007 Hero Award, and chosen as a “Personality of the Week” by Radio Free Europe in January 2008. She will join us to provide insight into Afghan women’s perspectives about peace, security, and what the future holds.

Host: Amb. (ret.) Robert W. “Bill” Farrand

]]>http://peaceops.gmu.edu/2014/05/01/afghan-women-perspectives-on-peace-security-and-the-future-march-19-2014/feed/0What Will Happen After Sochi 2014—Can a Ukrainian Euro-Revolution Change the Ruling System in Russia and Other Post-Soviet Republics? – February 26, 2014http://peaceops.gmu.edu/2014/05/01/after-sochi/
http://peaceops.gmu.edu/2014/05/01/after-sochi/#commentsThu, 01 May 2014 20:57:49 +0000http://peaceops.gmu.edu/?p=1589

Mykola Vorobiov is political journalist and blogger from Kiev, Ukraine. An expert on Eurasia, he has posted his stories to TV channels and Internet news websites such as Ukrains’ka Pravda and Korrespondent.net. Vorobiov has posted stories from the unrest in Egypt (February-March 2012), the Georgian and Ukrainian parliamentary elections (October 2012), and Moscow’s local mayoral elections (September 2013). He is also chief editor of the Euro-Patrol public campaign, originally created to monitor Ukraine’s preparations for hosting the “Euro-2012” European soccer championship. The Euro-Patrol team monitored how the government spent Ukrainian tax money for the championship and investigated corruption during and after the event. In the summer-fall of 2013, Vorobiov was able to come to the U.S. as a participant in the U.S. Department of State’s “International Visitor Leadership Program” (IVLP). He visited with news outlets and NGOs in several U.S. cities to learn more about the role of civil society in fighting corruption. Vorobiov has been reporting from the barricades in Kiev and other Ukrainian cities since the first day of the uprising in November 2013. He holds a master’s degree in economic management from Kyiv National University of Trade and Economics and is pursuing post-graduate courses in the University’s Philosophy Department. Vorobiov will be providing an overview of the present situation in Ukraine and details of his experiences working with activists confronting Viktor Yanukovych’s regime.

The Peace Operations Policy Program, The Defense Education Forum of the Reserve Officers Association, the Civil Affairs Association, The Foreign Area Officer Association, the Alliance for Peacebuilding, United Nations Association of the USA – National Capital Area, and The Better World Campaign organized a roundtable on November 14, 2013 to explore the military’s ability to support peacebuilding activities.

Peacebuilding, as defined by the United Nations, involves “a range of measures targeted to reduce the risk of lapsing or relapsing into conflict by strengthening national capacities at all levels for conflict management, and to lay the foundation for sustainable peace and development. [It] is a complex, long-term process of creating the necessary conditions for sustainable peace. It works by addressing the deep-rooted, structural causes of violent conflict in a comprehensive manner. Peacebuilding measures address core issues that affect the functioning of society and the State, and seek to enhance the capacity of the State to effectively and legitimately carry out its core functions.” As peacebuilding moves the forefront of peace and security activities worldwide, our speakers discussed: How the role of the U.S. military should be evolving to meet this challenge? How do peacebuilding actors view how the military fits into a “whole of society” effort to address “human security” concerns? What is the way ahead on civil-military coordination in peacebuilding?

A reception to honor U.S. Military Observers to the United Nations was held afterward, with opening remarks presented by Congressman Jim Moran (D-VA).

Scott Duncan is a Foreign Affairs Officer in the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations (CSO) where he supports strategy development for engagements in Africa and leads efforts to integrate new technologies and innovative approaches into conflict prevention efforts. Duncan has deployed to Africa twice with CSO, serving as the State Department Field Representative for Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) issues in 2012 and as a Political Officer in Juba, South Sudan in late 2010 and early 2011. Other assignments include rotations as Somalia Desk Officer and India Desk Officer. Prior to joining the State Department, Duncan worked on nuclear nonproliferation and arms control issues for the Department of Defense. He has also worked at the U.S. Mission to International Organizations in Geneva and the U.S. Mission to NATO in Brussels. Duncan holds an M.A. International Relations from Princeton University and a B.A. History from Dartmouth College.

Charlene Brown is a Stabilization Operations Specialist in the Africa Operations team at CSO, where she currently covers Great Lakes and counter-LRA issues. She recently returned from deployments in Africa, where she was first seconded to the UN Stabilization Support Unit in Goma, DRC during the M23 uprising, and later worked in Central African Republic and Uganda as a State Department Field Representative for LRA issues. Past work includes design of integrated planning tools and products and teaching planning and facilitation techniques to interagency Civilian Response Corps members with the CSO Office of Learning and Training, and deployment to Afghanistan in 2010 as a Civ-Mil Planner to support the civilian uplift at Embassy Kabul in the Office of Interagency Provincial Affairs. Prior to CSO, Brown worked at the National Democratic Institute, at a financial advisory firm, and in the State Department’s Bureau for European and Eurasian Affairs and the Consular Section at Embassy Paris. She holds a bilingual double master’s degree in Conflicts and Security from l’Institut d’Etudes Politiques and International Political Economy from the London School of Economics. Brown earned her B.A. International Politics and Transatlantic Affairs from Georgetown University.

Yoni Bock serves as a Humanitarian Assistance Advisor/Military based out of USAID/Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. He has worked with OFDA for nearly 10 years, and with the Military Liaison Team since 2009. Bock has participated in numerous overseas disaster responses, including the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami (Operation Tomodachi), where he deployed as the Disaster Assistance Response Team’s Civil-Military Coordinator; and Kenya post-election violence in 2007. He served on technical teams sent to assist after the 2007 Greece wildfires and 2008 China earthquake. Back home, Bock was assigned to U.S. Central Command as the Senior Humanitarian Advisor, providing input on various exercises and operational guidance on military requirements during emergencies in Central Asia, including the 2010 Pakistan floods (2010-12); detailed to the Pentagon, where he supported the Office of the Secretary of Defense/Policy during the Haiti Earthquake response as a military liaison officer and worked on updating DoD policy pertaining to international disaster response (2009-10); and covered OFDA’s Iraq portfolio, including overseeing the programming of more than $80 million in emergency and transitional assistance (2008-09). Prior positions include work with the International Crisis Group, the Congressional Research Service, the U.N. International Strategy for Disaster Reduction in Kenya, and several years with an Internet social media company in the 1990s. He holds an M.A. Law and Diplomacy (International Security Studies) from Tufts University’s Fletcher School and a B.A. Religion and Middle East Studies from McGill University in Montreal, Canada.

Behzad Roohi returned to the U.S. in December after spending over three years in Shindand District, Herat, Afghanistan as a USAID Foreign Service field program officer. Roohi worked with the district government on development, governance, and security issues; managed and monitored more than $4 million worth of USAID-funded projects; served as development advisor to ISAF and Coalition forces; and was the sole international election observer for the district, Afghanistan’s largest, during the 2010 Parliamentary elections. Prior to this, our speaker served in Qatar as a linguist and cultural analyst for Afghanistan and Iraq with McNeil Technologies (2009); worked stateside as a senior policy analyst for Iran with JTG-Inc. (2007-09) and as a regional recruitment officer with the U.S. Peace Corps (2002-07); and in Ghana as a U.S. Peace Corps community/youth development officer (1998-2000). Roohi holds an M.S. Peace Operations, George Mason University; and B.A. International Affairs, The George Washington University. He will be discussing the role of civilians in facilitating and streamlining the civ-mil operation in a conflict zone, based on his experience working at a district level in Afghanistan.

Bob Crowley recently returned to the U.S. after serving as the senior governance and development advisor to General David Petraeus’ Counterinsurgency Advisory and Assistance Team in Afghanistan (2010-11), primarily focused on efforts taking place in Kandahar, Helmand, and Kabul. Prior to that, he commanded a Civil Affairs brigade with four subordinate battalions providing full spectrum civil-military planning and execution capabilities to Corps and below elements in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the U.S. Pacific Command area of operations (2008-10). Crowley was the lead military planner for all Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Iraq (2007), where he developed, implemented, and resourced comprehensive operational concepts for the employment of 24 teams supporting stabilization and counterinsurgency efforts. He also served as chief, Civil Affairs and deputy chief, Information Operations, U.S. Southern Command (2003-2005), where he was responsible for theater-wide civil affairs and demining operations in Latin America and the Caribbean; influence operations designed to reduce ungoverned spaces throughout the area, with a focus on counterinsurgency and stability operations in Colombia, Ecuador, and Haiti; and the interagency synchronization necessary to achieve U.S. government policy objectives. Crowley holds a M.S. National Security Strategy from the National War College, and a B.S. Political Science from the State University of New York. He will be speaking to us about his time serving as a civilian advisor to General Petraeus, and his observations on multinational and interagency operations in conflict environments.

The Peace Operations Policy Program (POPP) recently co-hosted the 2013 Unified “Peace and Stability Operations Training and Education” (SOTEW) and the “Integration and Exercise” Workshop (IEW) with the Director of Training, Readiness and Strategy, Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Readiness teams, Joint Staff/J7, U.S. Army Peace Keeping and Stability Operations Institute (PKSOI), and other stakeholders at Founders Hall in Arlington, Va from January 28-31, 2013.

The workshop brought together trainers, practitioners, planners and educators from U.S., international governmental and military organizations, non-governmental organizations, peace and stability training centers, and academic institutions to review the training and education efforts in stability and peace operations to develop recommendations for preserved practices and processes, and those that should be adapted by the community in plans for future operations in complex environments included keynote addresses, panels, and presentations on topics such as conflict prevention; conflict response; and humanitarian assistance and disaster response preparedness.

Highlights of the workshop included welcoming remarks by Dr. Allison Frendak-Blume, director of POPP at GMU’s of Public Policy; and a keynote address from former congressman Ike Skelton (D-MO).